


Eigengrau

by eleutheria_has_won



Series: Bondmates AU [1]
Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Bonds, Gen, I need to write more of this, I never realized how well these two work together as buddies, Twitchtip lives, cuteness, tuc fic exchange, war buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/pseuds/eleutheria_has_won
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're neither of them supposed to be alive. Maybe that's why it feels so normal, just being by each other's side, and allowing each other to - almost - heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eigengrau

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WonderBoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderBoy/gifts).



> For thathopelessromantic/WonderBoy, for the 2013 Underland Chronicles Fic Exchange. Thanks for the great prompts, I had a lot of fun with this!
> 
> Prompt: Choose one character who died in the series and change how the ending would have gone, had that character not passed away.

 

 

eigengrau (n.) [German: _intrinsic gray_ , literally _own gray_ ] the faint light seen by the eye when standing in absolute darkness.

 

Gregor was still in the Regalian infirmary, somewhere in the middle of the process of finding his feet almost a month after the end of the war, when they brought her in.

According to one of the soldiers he managed to snag out of the passing convoy, the army had been running sweeps of the Bane's former holdings, trying to suss out any resistance or unexpected surprises. In the terms of secret forces or weapons, they'd found nothing, but when they'd come across the Bane's prison pits, the last thing they had expected was to find prisoners.

Scratch that; prisoners they had fully expected. _Living_ prisoners were a whole other matter entirely.

A living prisoner who was also three-fourths dead of starvation/abuse and a _rat_ besides was something outside the realm of expectation entirely.

Most Regalian soldiers would have left her – or any rat, really – to die, no matter how uncomfortably pathetic she looked or the fact that she was in their enemy's torture pits. But apparently the captain of the squad had actually seen her before, a little under a year ago with Ripred, and had made the tactical decision to bring her back. As a prisoner, of course. It had taken Luxa's intervention, Luxa told him later as he trembled just outside the window to the room, to convince them that no, this was not a prisoner, this was a friend, and she was to be taken to the infirmary _immediately_.

Gregor was still shaky on his feet at that point, to put it mildly (to put it accurately, Howard and the doctors were still telling him not to try walking for more than a couple minutes every day, but screw that, this was more important), but once he heard who was here, he was stumbling through the halls before he knew what he was doing, narrowly dodging frowning doctors and nurses, forcing his legs to hold him just a bit longer until he could find where the newcomer was being held. Luxa met him half-way, and guided him the rest of the distance, subtly holding him up when it looked like he would fall. By the time they reached the room where the doctors were holding her, Gregor was leaning almost all of his weight on Luxa and panting and shivering with the effort. Luxa eased him down in a chair next to the glass wall and dismissed the guards with nothing but a superior glare. Gregor sent her a grateful smile for it, but his eyes were soon drawn back to the miserable rat just inside the window.

“Hello, Twitchtip,” he croaked. “You're looking well.”

The mound of ragged fur and fresh bandages quivered and uncurled a little. A well-scarred nose hovered shakily in the air and twitched once before falling limply. “I only wish,” the rat rasped wryly. “Can't say the same of you, Overlander brat. You smell terrible.”

“Such compliments,” Gregor laughed roughly, easing back into the chair.

Ten months of imprisonment and torture had not been kind to Twitchtip. She had always seemed thin, from the difficulties of surviving alone, Gregor assumed, but now her ribs and spine stuck out like knives. Every time she moved, Gregor could see the bones sliding under what little of her patchy, flea-bitten gray fur he could see. Most of that fur and skin was hidden behind bandages; as she shifted and resettled, Gregor could already see red soaking through some of them. The skin he _could_ see was littered with scars, both old and new. Her teeth were jagged from where they'd been broken to prevent them from piercing her brain. Her eyes were too bright and feverish with sickness and dehydration. The chewed tatters her ears had become were still crusted over with blood in most places.

Gregor's heart hurt. Another person he hadn't saved, couldn't save, didn't save. Had still been saved.

“You smell like death, Overlander, you can't expect me to _like_ it. I've been smelling it too much by now,” Twitchtip grumbled hoarsely. He could hear the painful wheezing in her chest, even through the window.

“I'm glad you're alive,” he whispered, and began, silently, to cry.

Twitchtip stilled. Her nose twitched once – smelling the salt in the tears, Gregor thought inanely – then she shuddered and relaxed all the way out of her tight coil. Gregor could actually see all of her now, even as the sight was blurring away with tears. Slowly, painfully, the gray rat inched her way over to the window, until she was less than a foot away from Gregor, and curled up against the glass, panting with the effort. After a few seconds of rest, she reached out and tapped her left forepaw against the glass. “...same,” she muttered.

Gregor didn't hear Luxa leave until the door had closed after her. From beyond, he could faintly hear murmuring voices – hers, others, some guards perhaps, once he even thought he heard Howard – and later silence. She returned just once, hours later, to bring the both of them food and blankets. (For Gregor, at least, Twitchtip just wrinkled her nose and outright refused the blanket.) No one else disturbed them. Later, Luxa would regale him, mock-irate, with the story of fending off guards, doctors, and emissaries from the council.

For all her protesting, though, he and Twitchtip were left in peace the rest of the night. Sometimes they talked, haltingly, slowly, forcing out word after word the stories of what had happened to them since the first quest for the Bane. Gregor told her about the plague; Twitchtip recognized it, and told him about rumors heard from the pit guards about an unstoppable plague, and – later – the humans' treachery. Twitchtip shivered and rasped through anecdotes about the torture she'd undergone in the pits, while Gregor fought to keep what little food he had eaten down in his stomach and stood silent witness. Face blank, Gregor even told her about Ares. In between the stories, they sat in silence, finding some measure of comfort in the presence of a living being not actively trying to hurt them.

When the “morning” rolled around, the doctors finally invaded. Two of them hassled Gregor off to his actual room, while he could see the remainder warily approaching Twitchtip. Once he'd been settled back in his own bed, his doctor gave him a stern lecture, but to his surprise otherwise left him alone. Luxa came and explained her part in holding them off so that Gregor could have time with Twitchtip. She told him that he might as well spend time with the rat if he wanted – after all, everyone else was so often busy trying to keep what was left of the city from falling down around their ears, they rarely had more than an hour or two to spend with Gregor.

And Twitchtip, after all, had no one.

After that, it just became a... a thing, during their recovery, for Gregor and Twitchtip to spend their time together. Gregor didn't know what else to call it. When he had the time and permission, Gregor hobbled his way over to Twitchtip's room, where they had a little bit of time to relax with a friend before something or other came up. When she finally healed enough that she started getting restless trapped in her room, Gregor talked to the doctors and called in a few favors, and got Mareth, who wasn't exactly needed to train any new soldiers at the moment, to escort him and Twitchtip on walks through the halls of the palace. Twitchtip, as a rat in a city that had just been decimated by rats, wasn't safe on her own or particularly well-liked, so the guard was as much for her protection as it was for anyone else's.

While they walked, they traded words with a comfortable ease that grew with every walk. Their topics of conversation were endless. They talked about Ripred (she had known _of_ him longer than she had known him, but she had stories all the same), or their families (Twitchtip had once had siblings, he discovered, though she had no idea where they were now), or the Underland (there was so much he didn't know), or ragers and scentseers (Gregor talked about being afraid of loosing control, all the time, and she told him that she knew, she could smell when his control wavered; she admitted that the faint scent of rager was soothing to her and talked about the constant headache she got from the smell of the city; he found she could stand the smell of lavender and by the next day got her a fresh rag soaked in lavender water to block out everything else), or even talked of nothing at all. It was little moments of quiet in the middle of a world that was more than a little unfriendly.

It took time, and more than a little patience, but they started hurting less and less, every day. The stitches came out, one after the other. Twitchtip's ribs eventually stopped sticking out quite so much. They recovered, slowly but surely – and they recovered together.

When the day came for the final meeting between sides, Twitchtip was crouched painfully off to the side of the arena with her rag pressed to her nose, eyes flicking from group to group. Gregor, making the rounds to talk with Luxa and his sisters and the rest of the people he knew, caught her eye and gave her a quick smile and nod. Ten minutes later, he meandered his way over to lean against the wall by her side, trading a cursory look before she huddled closer against the wall and he glanced over the arena again.

“Stinks?” he murmured after a moment, mouth tweaking in a brief smile. Twitchtip hissed lowly at his deliberate obtuseness; Gregor felt the brush of fur against his leg as the gray rat edged closer.

“Too many people, too much tension, and they didn't scrub the blood out well enough. By comparison, you smell tolerable, Overlander,” she muttered darkly. “I'm going to vomit.” Gregor grinned softly and, without taking his eyes off the unfolding scene, let his hand fall to her neck fur and rest on it lightly. Twitchtip grumbled, but pressed closer despite her apparent dislike. His grin widened. The smile felt strange on his face.

“You should probably go out there,” the rat said after a moment. “Your queen doesn't look it, points for that, but she stinks of nervous. She's not used to playing nice with rats. ”

“And I am?” Gregor asked her playfully, bumping her side gently with his leg. Her only response was a snort and a sharp flick of her tail across his knees. The message was all too clear. He rolled his eyes, but huffed and made to push himself up. “Fine, you've made your point. I'm not standing with either group, though,” he added.

“No argument,” she grunted. “...stand with the crawlers, instead. They're neutral enough.”

“Works for me,” Gregor shrugged. “Hopefully this won't end in more fighting. See you soon.”

Twitchtip just snorted at him through her rag and grumbled, “Good luck.”

(Later, he would slip out from the feast, head still ringing with the sound of his snapped sword, and find her still huddled down in the arena, forgotten during the day's insane events.

“So,” he said.

“So,” she replied. “How are Ripred and Luxa dealing?” He didn't pretend it was his imagination making her sound a little wistful.

“As well as you'd expect for the two of them,” he said, making her chuckle hoarsely. “They barely know each other, and they can't stop arguing; as far as gnawer-human bonds go, they're pretty terrible as a first example.”

She snorted at him, sarcastic as she ever got. “They're a human and a gnawer. Can you name anyone one else, human _or_ gnawer, who'd do any better as bonds?”

His palms were uncharacteristically sweaty. He swallowed sharply, rubbed them on his pants to dry them, and ignored Twitchtip's look of curious suspicion. He hadn't been this nervous the first time; but then, there hadn't been enough time to be nervous in, the first time. He hadn't understood, then, anyway, what a bond would really mean. His mind jumped to a memory of his dad telling the story of how he proposed to Gregor's mother. Gregor snorted. Yeah, that was really helpful in making him less nervous, and besides, this wasn't even really the same thing. “Well...” he hesitated. “I know we would.”

Twitchtip started briefly, glancing up at him. Gregor didn't meet her eyes. He could hear her shifting uneasily beside him, before settling back down against the wall and staring into the distance contemplatively. “Us?” she said quietly. He noticed she had taken the rag from her nose, which was now twitching a little as she took in his scent, searching for sincerity. Gregor nodded. He couldn't speak, anyway, not past his heart, which had somehow miraculously gotten lodged in his throat.

Twitchtip didn't speak. Instead she choose to examine the seats on the far side of the arena in fine detail, nose twitching and ears flicking as she caught the scents and sounds of the Underland. But after a moment, Gregor felt a delicate set of claws touch his right hand. When he relaxed it out of a fist, the claws grasped his hand, briefly, in a fair mimicry of the bonding gesture, and suddenly, he could breathe again.)


End file.
